doesn't expect and one doesn't get a glimmer. That there obviously isn't enough tragedy in real life to make it noble, that people have begun to lose all sense of the tragic, and that the argument he produces has nothing to do with fiction—these things the reader will be aware of the moment he begins to read the stories themselves. A low conception of art is a fairly certain sign of a low understanding of life. It is not surprising to read the confused and commonplace remarks which Professor Pitkin makes about science, about the creative mind, about the college graduate of to-day who "knows more" than Aristotle did—as if any one ever cared for how much Aristotle knew. But on the whole the intrusion of that great name is apt. For most of the plays he knew and wrote about were also on "given themes"—exactly in the sense of "donnée"—and they were works of art and had reference to contemporary life, and to life itself.[1]
- ↑ It is as well not to encourage misconception. The Dial will offer, presently, a collection of stories from its pages, under the imprint of Alfred A. Knopf. So those who feel that my objections to other stories are chiefly due to the fact that they haven't appeared in The Dial can add that to their justification. The objections remain; and Stories From The Dial will only enforce their validity. They will, additionally, be good stories.
